May 16, 2016
Professor Stelios Kyriakides of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin has been selected by the Cockrell School of Engineering to receive the 2016 Joe J. King Professional Engineering Achievement Award.
The award, funded by Cockrell School alumnus Joe J. King, ME 1925, recognizes a faculty member who has made significant contributions in furthering the profession of engineering. Mr. King's education in engineering, his years of practice as an engineer and the rewards he received in his practice left him with an increasingly deep respect for the profession. This respect, along with his love for his alma mater, led him to establish the award.
Kyriakides is internationally recognized for his research contributions to the field of mechanics and solids and structures, particularly on instability at both the structural material levels. He has pioneered the field of propagating instabilities, a unique failure mode that tends to localize and spread. His contributions include plastic instabilities and crushing of structures, plasticity, forming problems in manufacturing, localization and ductile failure of metals, the mechanical behavior of composites, etc.
He has also had a productive relationship with the offshore oil and gas exploration and production industry, where his research has influenced the manufacture of tubular products, the design procedures for installing them in the sea, and evaluation of their performance under the operational loads. The results of his research play a prominent role in pipeline design codes and have made him a major technical advisor to the offshore industry worldwide.
Kyriakides is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, holder of the John Webb Jennings Chair in Engineering, and Director of the Center for Mechanics of Solids, Structures and Materials at UT Austin. He has published more than 200 technical articles and reports, has co-authored one book, co-edited five books, and has lectured extensively both nationally and internationally.
